EVENTS - 07.2008

Warsaw in Good Company

Wallpaper, one of the world’s most prestigious lifestyle magazines, has added Warsaw to its series of city guides. Wallpaper City Guide Warsaw will be available at the best bookstores all over the world. Many foreigners, at first glance, perceive Warsaw as a grey city, full of post-soviet blocks of flats and governmental buildings. Still, it just seems to be so. The city bursts with life and it is very interesting as far as its architecture is concerned, reads the City Guide which depicts Warsaw as the only city of the kind, where the buildings from the social-realism age are mixed with glass skyscrapers and Art-Nouveau tenement houses. Apart from original architecture, the city has fantastic restaurants, luxury boutiques and open people, too, the authors of the Guide conclude. The Wallpaper series encourages tourists to visit, apart from Warsaw, such cities as Los Angeles, Chicago, Munich and Las Vegas. Hence, Warsaw is in good company.

Copernicus on the Vistula River

The Modern Copernicus Center of Polish Science (Centrum Nauki Polskiej Kopernik) is being constructed on the bank of the Vistula River in Warsaw. The design of the Center was selected in an international competition. The winners ‘ young Polish architects from the Laboratory of Architecture in Ruda Ślπska ‘ convinced the jury with their design that ideally fits the surrounding area and meets the requirements of the institution. The building will be 12 meters high, and it will have two stories, where on the surface of 15,000 square meters, there will be permanent and temporary exhibitions, laboratories, workshops, a conference center, cafes, restaurants and offices. Another characteristic feature of the Center is a planetarium located in a hall that is similar to an erratic block. In the basement, there will be a parking lot and workshops for the development of new exhibitions and conservation works. The first stage of the construction covers the A module of the building with the majority of halls for permanent exhibitions, while the second stage ‘ the B module and the planetarium. The A module is to be ready within 16 months, and the B module ‘ within 23 months. If there are no delays, the Copernicus Center of Polish Science will be opened at the end of 2009.

Euro2012 is near

Work on the organization of Euro2012 in Warsaw, where the inauguration of the championships will take place, is gaining momentum. The construction of the National Stadium, which will stand in the place of today’s Stadion Dziesięciolecia, known as Jarmark Europa (a large bazaar), has begun. City transport routes will be expanded, the second line of the subway system will be built, and there will be two new bridges on the Vistula. The entire area around the new stadium, which is the center of the Praga district, will be built up. An urban design for its development has already been presented. It looks to be attractive, as can be seen in the accompanying photo.

A beach on the Vistula

Near Saska Kępa, starting in July, there will be a genuine beach on the Vistula. In this way the Warsaw authorities will return to a tradition from a few decades ago, when Varsovians lolled about, swam and sunbathed along the Vistula. A lot has changed since then. The Vistula is not the same as it used to be and there are swimming pools in nearly every district of our city. However, a beach along the river and real sand are not anything like a modern pool complex. That is why the beach along the Vistula enjoys such great popularity. It is just too bad that our river is not clean enough to swim in without any worries. Some sunbathers do not pay any attention to the warnings. Beaches and beaches! In the picture ‘ the beach at Saska Kępa in the 1930s.

Zaha Hadid’s Skyscraper

The queen of world architecture and the designer of many exceptional projects, Zaha Hadid, was in Warsaw recently, where she met Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, among others. This visit was no accident. The famous architect is designing a skyscraper for Warsaw. It is supposed to be a 250 meter high building with 70,000 square meters of living space in the form of suites. It will be the tallest building in Warsaw. But that is not all ‘ Zaha Hadid is offering three more skyscrapers in the center of our city, in place of Dworzec Centralny (the central railway station), which is supposed to be torn down. If Zaha Hadid’s designs are realized in their entirety, Warsaw, and in particular its center, will look completely different. ‘I want to leave a mark on the diverse context of Warsaw’, said Hadid.

Important: telephone numbers for safety

899 200 300  /  608 599 999

A Safety Telephone has been created for foreign tourists. It will function until the end of September. Tourists who are visiting Poland will be able to get help in English, German and Russian, every day from 10:00 to 22:00. Land line connections ‘ 899 200 300 ‘ are free, and by mobile phone ‘ 608 599 999 ‘ are subject to mobile operators’ fees. Callers will be informed about travelling safely in our country. They will receive numbers to rescue services, emergency numbers, road assistance and tourist information. Those on duty will advise callers, for instance, what to do in the event of a collision or car accident. They will be in constant contact with the Main Police Headquarters.

Zidane played with boys in Warsaw

The legend of world soccer, Zinedine Zidane, appeared unexpectedly at a soccer field at Targowa 82 Street in Warsaw. Targowa Street is in the middle of the Praga district of Warsaw, and the playing field is designated for children from poor families, organized by the association Otwarte Drzwi (Open Doors). ‘I am for kids, because I am a father myself and I know that we need to tell them the world is for them’, said the famous footballer, who has been taking part in charity campaigns for years. While inaugurating the playing field, Zidane played soccer with boys from Praga, which they will be sure to remember for years to come. Of course, everybody wanted an autograph from the famous player.

The Warsaw Rising Museum is collecting awards

The Warsaw Rising Museum is one of the most modern museum sites in Europe, and it is enjoying great popularity among both Varsovians and numerous foreign tourists. Recently the museum received recognition (and in the four years of its existence, it has already collected more than twenty awards!) for the design of revitalizing a historic building. The museum located its seat in the hundred-year-old tramway power station. The adaptation of the historic interior was carried out while maintaining respect for the past. A young Polish engineer, Bogusław Kornecki, patented his own, previously unknown, method for removing stucco from walls made of brick without damaging them.

Lumping in Fargo

- In 2005 and 2007, California’s Transversal Theater Company toured your plays ‘Woof, Daddy’ and ‘Blue Shade’ in Poland, and this summer they are returning to Poland with the production of your new musical, ‘Lumping in Fargo’. Audiences here look forward to your return. Can you tell them a little about the performance?
- Bryan Reynolds: Yes, ‘Lumping in Fargo’ is a Gothic musical written in language both borrowed from and based on Shakespeare’s plays, with traces of Shakespeare’s characters haunting my characters, to tell a fantastic love story involving a disgruntled reclusive multimillionaire who collects expensive antique furniture, his 1980s new-wave styled dog (played by a beautiful woman), a shrewd yet floozy capitalist seeking his wealth and status, and a gorgeous working-class woman. When all is fun and games, this rollicking story is turned upside down by accusations of a terrible crime that reflects fears pervasive in America today.
- This sounds very exciting, not like anything I have seen before. Is it a comedy?
- Yes, but as in Shakespeare, although often hilarious, the subject matter is serious: love, desire, consent. Like the very best American musicals, I have tried to engage themes important to people everywhere through a genre and media that allow access without the kinds of expectations and defensiveness that often accompany non-musical drama, such as tragedies and histories. With suspenseful surprise after surprise, ‘Lumping in Fargo’ presents a slice of life at the heart of America that is not fundamentally different for people living elsewhere, but the cultural context it portrays (American Midwest; Fargo, North Dakota), because of its strange banality, is unavoidably funny, especially when absurd or accidently ironic.

‘Lumping in Fargo’ will be performed at the Teatr Rozrywki in Chorzów and at the 12th International Shakespeare Festival in Gdańsk. This is one performance you do not want to miss.